THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!
Part Three: Organ Transplant
Bob is currently numb from sheer unutterable terror. He would be screaming but his terror, being unutterable, is so far beyond the point of screaming that any meagre shriek would probably never do it justice. The reason for this state of horrendously overdosed fear is the spinning, incredibly sharp instrument of horrible screaming death that's slowly gravitating towards him, supervised by a dangerously sadistic redneck and his coldly intelligent cousin.
"Where should we sell his organs at?" inquired Flik, he of the red neck (though, being Irken it's more a shade of tourqouise).
"Can we concentrate on the matter of actually GETTING his organs in the first place?" retorted Blik, the tall, thin, distinctly brainier one, which if anything made him more dangerous than the tourquoise-neck, "It's YOUR job to handle the physical stuff and MY job to worry about the money. We discussed this in MUTUALLY AGREED lines of control in this scavenging business."
"What?" muttered Flik, his forehead burrowed in an effort to understand, "I thought we agreed to share the responsibility when it came to both physical AND mental labour. We drew up a contract about it!" Huh, he's smarter than he looks.
"No, we drew up the agreement on the basis of which jobs we were good at..." started Blik.
"No you didn't! We started this business EQUALLY! All this 'physical and mental division' crap was something you made up as an excuse NOT TO DO ANY WORK!" retorted Flik. Creative tensions seemed to be running away. Bob momentarily screamed as his terror levels dropped down through that particular stage.
"You were never any good at the thinking side of the business!" argued Blik, "We both AGREED on that..."
"No, no we didn't! You're playing mind games on me again, you've been doing that ever since we were kids you have!" replied Flik. With the salvaging business apparently collapsing under internal pressures, Bob took the oppurtunity to inspect his restraints. They were of the type that you could unlock yourself if you had the right flexibility. When you're as small as Bob, you can be the most flexible person in the universe.
"You were stupid!" Blik was still arguing, "You still are stupid! Remember what it was like when you were doing the bookeeping? You had to use the calculator every time! That wouldn't be so bad, but all you did was go up to me, ask for a calculator, do one sum, give it back, move on to the next one, go up to me, ask for the calculator again, FOR ALL ETERNITY! And then, some 3 hours later, you go up to me and ask how the calculator works! If that isn't stupid, I don't know what is!"
"Well you never did much on MY side of the business, DIDJA!" Flik argued back, "As soon as you picked up ONE barnacle-pickin' crate, you start moanin' and whingin' 'bout 'oh how heavy this is, oh we should get a fork lift or summit, oh I should rest for five minutes' AND YOU HADN'T EVEN LEFT THE HANGER YET! This business stands or falls on how much you can carry, and if you can't carry 3 ounces of salt on the smallest of Irk's moons then MAYBE you shouldn't be running this business anymore!"
"Oh, trust you to resort to the whole 'I'm stronger than you, so I'm automatically a better leader than you'," retorted Blik, "There is more to leadership than brute force, you neanderthal! There is intelligence, skill...ummm...height. Actually yeah! I'm taller than you! That means you have to do anything I say. And you can start by catching that Service Drone who's DISAPPEARING DOWN THAT VENTILATION DUCT!"
Sure enough, Bob had escaped his restraints and was clambering manically through a host of wiring and other such unpleasantries. He crouched and ducked and threw himself over large gaps until eventually he found himself face down on one of the ship's many portholes. Recovering himself, he found it was the door to one of the ship's many cargo transport pods, built to land on the nearest planet with the ship's cargo if the ship ever found itself in trouble. It was just like a salvage captain to place the safety of his livelihood before his actual person. It was already full of scrap, so it would be a tight squeeze. And it didn't have a life support system so the thing was useless unless real close to a planet.
"APPROACHING SIRIUS MINOR. ENGAGING ORBITAL TRAJECTORY." It was the ship's computer, heralding yet another of those helpful coincidences that always happens in fan-fics. Bob was about to climb into the pod and hit the eject switch when he looked across and noticed that he was right below the ship's central computer core. An evil thought entered into Bob's head.
Elsewhere on the ship, things had settled down. Well, not so much settled down as gently simmered under the surface, ready to explode at any moment. Blik and Flik were facing away from each other, they could no longer stand the sight of each other. Blik was furious, but it had been locked in that state for so long now that it seemed indistinguishable from his normal moods. To keep his mind occupied with something other than slaughtering Flik, he let his attention wander to the viewscreen, showing the planet of Sirius Minor getting uncomfortably close. Raising an eyebrow, he checked the computer's orbital route, and let out a surprised squeak.
"That horrible Service Drone!" exclaimed Blik, "Flik! Get to the computer! That Service Drone must have sabotaged it somehow!"
"I'm not going anywhere," Flik announced with some finality. This made Blik more than a little uncomfortable, as a warning light had started flashing red.
"But Fliiiik, we're in deep trouble..." Blik reasoned. A klaxon had started going off on the lower levels.
"Don't try to get me with that old tale, I'm going on strike!" said Flik, apparently oblivious to the row of warning lights that had just turned red and the klaxon that had gone off upstairs, "I can't take this kind of treatment anymore."
"Strike? YOU CAN'T GO ON STRIKE!" Blik said desperately, a klaxon had now gone off on the bridge, and most of the dashboard was flashing red, along with a big sign that had popped up saying 'do something stupid!', "We're falling into that planet! We're going to die! YOU CANNOT GO ON STRIKE WHEN WE'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!"
"Just watch me," said Flik. By this time several of the instruments had started malfunctioning out of the effort to tell the two pilots that something was going horribly wrong. The outside had started to heat up, and licks of flame were starting to appear on the tips of the ship. Blik dropped to his knees and started begging, but by then he was too late. The bridge was falling apart around him, the controls had fused under the heat and were already disintegrating, and Flik remained implaceable. The ship was now aflame, and bits were breaking off. By the time Flik realised his mistake, he was already burnt out, blackened carcass, along with his business partner, and the ship was collapsing in and crushing their charred remains into a sticky goop.
Next to the streaming ball of flame was another flame, this time absorbed into the craft. It was small and rounded, and full of scrap. Inside, you could see a small, crouched Irken, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth wide open, emitting a scream inaudible over the sound of the craft re-entering, desperately hoping that the landing didn't crush his charred remains into a sticky goop as well.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Part Three: Organ Transplant
Bob is currently numb from sheer unutterable terror. He would be screaming but his terror, being unutterable, is so far beyond the point of screaming that any meagre shriek would probably never do it justice. The reason for this state of horrendously overdosed fear is the spinning, incredibly sharp instrument of horrible screaming death that's slowly gravitating towards him, supervised by a dangerously sadistic redneck and his coldly intelligent cousin.
"Where should we sell his organs at?" inquired Flik, he of the red neck (though, being Irken it's more a shade of tourqouise).
"Can we concentrate on the matter of actually GETTING his organs in the first place?" retorted Blik, the tall, thin, distinctly brainier one, which if anything made him more dangerous than the tourquoise-neck, "It's YOUR job to handle the physical stuff and MY job to worry about the money. We discussed this in MUTUALLY AGREED lines of control in this scavenging business."
"What?" muttered Flik, his forehead burrowed in an effort to understand, "I thought we agreed to share the responsibility when it came to both physical AND mental labour. We drew up a contract about it!" Huh, he's smarter than he looks.
"No, we drew up the agreement on the basis of which jobs we were good at..." started Blik.
"No you didn't! We started this business EQUALLY! All this 'physical and mental division' crap was something you made up as an excuse NOT TO DO ANY WORK!" retorted Flik. Creative tensions seemed to be running away. Bob momentarily screamed as his terror levels dropped down through that particular stage.
"You were never any good at the thinking side of the business!" argued Blik, "We both AGREED on that..."
"No, no we didn't! You're playing mind games on me again, you've been doing that ever since we were kids you have!" replied Flik. With the salvaging business apparently collapsing under internal pressures, Bob took the oppurtunity to inspect his restraints. They were of the type that you could unlock yourself if you had the right flexibility. When you're as small as Bob, you can be the most flexible person in the universe.
"You were stupid!" Blik was still arguing, "You still are stupid! Remember what it was like when you were doing the bookeeping? You had to use the calculator every time! That wouldn't be so bad, but all you did was go up to me, ask for a calculator, do one sum, give it back, move on to the next one, go up to me, ask for the calculator again, FOR ALL ETERNITY! And then, some 3 hours later, you go up to me and ask how the calculator works! If that isn't stupid, I don't know what is!"
"Well you never did much on MY side of the business, DIDJA!" Flik argued back, "As soon as you picked up ONE barnacle-pickin' crate, you start moanin' and whingin' 'bout 'oh how heavy this is, oh we should get a fork lift or summit, oh I should rest for five minutes' AND YOU HADN'T EVEN LEFT THE HANGER YET! This business stands or falls on how much you can carry, and if you can't carry 3 ounces of salt on the smallest of Irk's moons then MAYBE you shouldn't be running this business anymore!"
"Oh, trust you to resort to the whole 'I'm stronger than you, so I'm automatically a better leader than you'," retorted Blik, "There is more to leadership than brute force, you neanderthal! There is intelligence, skill...ummm...height. Actually yeah! I'm taller than you! That means you have to do anything I say. And you can start by catching that Service Drone who's DISAPPEARING DOWN THAT VENTILATION DUCT!"
Sure enough, Bob had escaped his restraints and was clambering manically through a host of wiring and other such unpleasantries. He crouched and ducked and threw himself over large gaps until eventually he found himself face down on one of the ship's many portholes. Recovering himself, he found it was the door to one of the ship's many cargo transport pods, built to land on the nearest planet with the ship's cargo if the ship ever found itself in trouble. It was just like a salvage captain to place the safety of his livelihood before his actual person. It was already full of scrap, so it would be a tight squeeze. And it didn't have a life support system so the thing was useless unless real close to a planet.
"APPROACHING SIRIUS MINOR. ENGAGING ORBITAL TRAJECTORY." It was the ship's computer, heralding yet another of those helpful coincidences that always happens in fan-fics. Bob was about to climb into the pod and hit the eject switch when he looked across and noticed that he was right below the ship's central computer core. An evil thought entered into Bob's head.
Elsewhere on the ship, things had settled down. Well, not so much settled down as gently simmered under the surface, ready to explode at any moment. Blik and Flik were facing away from each other, they could no longer stand the sight of each other. Blik was furious, but it had been locked in that state for so long now that it seemed indistinguishable from his normal moods. To keep his mind occupied with something other than slaughtering Flik, he let his attention wander to the viewscreen, showing the planet of Sirius Minor getting uncomfortably close. Raising an eyebrow, he checked the computer's orbital route, and let out a surprised squeak.
"That horrible Service Drone!" exclaimed Blik, "Flik! Get to the computer! That Service Drone must have sabotaged it somehow!"
"I'm not going anywhere," Flik announced with some finality. This made Blik more than a little uncomfortable, as a warning light had started flashing red.
"But Fliiiik, we're in deep trouble..." Blik reasoned. A klaxon had started going off on the lower levels.
"Don't try to get me with that old tale, I'm going on strike!" said Flik, apparently oblivious to the row of warning lights that had just turned red and the klaxon that had gone off upstairs, "I can't take this kind of treatment anymore."
"Strike? YOU CAN'T GO ON STRIKE!" Blik said desperately, a klaxon had now gone off on the bridge, and most of the dashboard was flashing red, along with a big sign that had popped up saying 'do something stupid!', "We're falling into that planet! We're going to die! YOU CANNOT GO ON STRIKE WHEN WE'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!"
"Just watch me," said Flik. By this time several of the instruments had started malfunctioning out of the effort to tell the two pilots that something was going horribly wrong. The outside had started to heat up, and licks of flame were starting to appear on the tips of the ship. Blik dropped to his knees and started begging, but by then he was too late. The bridge was falling apart around him, the controls had fused under the heat and were already disintegrating, and Flik remained implaceable. The ship was now aflame, and bits were breaking off. By the time Flik realised his mistake, he was already burnt out, blackened carcass, along with his business partner, and the ship was collapsing in and crushing their charred remains into a sticky goop.
Next to the streaming ball of flame was another flame, this time absorbed into the craft. It was small and rounded, and full of scrap. Inside, you could see a small, crouched Irken, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth wide open, emitting a scream inaudible over the sound of the craft re-entering, desperately hoping that the landing didn't crush his charred remains into a sticky goop as well.
TO BE CONTINUED...